Cruisin’ Again

Ok, show of hands… who thought I quit blogging again? LOL sorry, still here. Things have just been a bit hectic around here with our bathroom remodel, now front porch repair, and in between, a 9-day cruise. Then coming home and having to do loads and loads… and loads of laundry.

With Cruise 2 behind me, I can say that my feelings about cruises haven’t changed. I can take them or leave them… actually lean toward leaving them because being stuck on a floating shopping mall is still not for me.

This time we sailed out of Fort Lauderdale on the Odyssey of the Seas (I preferred the Allure of the Seas. It’s just overall a nicer, prettier ship). We were in a family and friends group of a total of 18 people but I vowed that I would do my own thing and not care what everyone else was doing, and certainly not dictate what what we should do, and that’s exactly what I did. Starting with the excursions. I had told Greg that I would only go on this cruise if we got to decide what we wanted to do (no more booking whatever everyone else was doing!)

We had a room with a balcony again, and I spent time sitting outside, reading. Or early in the morning I would quietly sneak out of the room and go to the Solarium to photograph the sunrise, then enjoy a cup of coffee at a window table in the Windjammer (the buffet style main restaurant). One morning, when I was walking to the seating area, breakfast in hand, I saw Greg walk through the Windjammer, on his way to meet up with some of the guys of our group (for some reason the women all liked to sleep late. Weird.) and like the expert ninja that I am, I weaved through the food stations to avoid being seen by him, JUST to make sure I got to enjoy my coffee in peace.
I wandered the ship, mostly did the trivia games and a scavenger hunt or two. The headliner shows in the evening weren’t all that impressive, although the comedian was pretty funny, especially when he did his adult show. I didn’t really spend any time in the Solarium this cruise, except early morning (too crowded during the day) and avoided the pool deck like the plague. Too many kids and too many annoying people.

Room with a View.

In the Solarium. First time I saw her (I was standing behind her), I thought it was a real person.

Early morning in the Solarium.

Early morning at the Pool Deck.

Breakfast with ocean view in the Windjammer.

Day 1*, 2, and 3 were sea days. Aka stuck-on-the-ship days. On Day 4 we arrived in Willemstad, Curaçao and we were booked on the “Curaçao Highlights & Beach Fun” tour. Such a pretty and colorful place! We spent some time on the bus, learning about the island, then stopped for some Curaçao Liqueur, then spent some time on the beach before heading back to the ship and some exploring on foot and port shopping. Sara and her boyfriend ended up on that same excursion with us. Others in our group booked the same excursion but at a later time, which was just fine with me.

Sunrise

Odyssey of the Seas, with our stateroom circled.

Curaçao Liqueurs. It comes in different colors but they all taste the same. The different flavor varieties in the bottom row are Chocolate, Tamarind, Coffee, and Rum Raisin.

Mambo Beach, Curaçao

Willemstad, Curaçao

Day 5 we arrived in Oranjestad, Aruba and were booked on the “Aruba Sights, Scenes & Tastes” bus tour with stops at the (collapsed) Natural Bridge, some kind of gold mill ruins, the California Lighthouse, and about 30 minutes at Eagle Beach. Then some exploring on foot and port shopping again after we were dropped back off at the ship. Sara and her boyfriend got back from their excursion not long after we did, so we met up with them for a late lunch at one of the restaurants in town.

Aruba

Oranjestad, Aruba

California Lighthouse, Aruba

Day 6 and 7 were stuck-on-the-ship days again, and Day 8 was spent on CocoCay which is Royal Caribbean’s private Island. Yeah. Was not impressed. Too many things you had to pay a fortune for to get in ($150 per person to get into the waterpark, anyone?) or do ($70 per person for a 10-minute helium balloon “ride”… with 30 other people) so we spent a few hours on the free beach and headed back to the ship early afternoon, after lunch at the (complimentary) buffet. Since this was our last full day, we (I) had to pack anyway and finally got off the ship around 8:30am on day 9.

CocoCay, Bahamas

Chill Island, CocoCay

* On Day 1 I wore my “I’d rather be in London” T-shirt (so true!!) but disappointingly none of our group seemed to notice, or just decided not to comment on it. Pfft. But as we were wandering the ship while we were waiting for our rooms to be ready, we walked by a couple of Royal Caribbean team members and one of them says to me “I like your shirt!!” And one day at breakfast, one of the waiters stops at my table to offer orange juice and then asks what that is on my left arm. I show him and tell him it’s a skyline of London. He looks at it… and looks at it.. and looks at it some more, and finally says “it’s niiiiice.”

Inner Workings

Have you ever wondered what a lens looks like on the inside? I have, and decided to take apart my 10+ year old, much used, completely worn out, very favorite lens, the 60mm Micro Nikkor after I replaced it with another macro lens.

It was surprisingly difficult and I never did manage to get it completely apart. Those things are solid and certainly well made. After several hours of poking and prodding and pulling and prying, I gave up and had a little photo shoot with the bits and pieces I ended up with.

Signs of Spring – A Photo Hunt

Karen recently posted a new photo hunt on her blog. She wanted us to show her what spring looks like where we live. As an added twist, she wants us to use a prime lens, if we have one.

The were all taken with my 60mm macro lens (my favorite lens!). The first two are from my visit to the Dallas Arboretum a few weeks ago. The next two are from a walk around my neighborhood, and the last one I spotted in my backyard.

Tulips and Daffodils

Daffodil

Grape Hyacinths

Violets

Star of Bethlehem

Tattoosday – The Grand Finale

Move over San Francisco. I left my heart in London!

I love this tattoo (and it has quite the story attached to it). And I love it for several reasons… It is my most detailed one; one of my most meaningful ones; I have been to, or have seen, every single place pictured; it reminds me of the best vacation I have taken; it was designed by my favorite artist (and dear friend), which also makes it the most surprising one, that I never thought I would ever have (you’ll see…).

I was supposed to go to London in June 2020, but sadly had to cancel and postpone. Back then I asked my dear friend (and very talented artist) Brian if he would be willing to design a London tattoo for me. His answer was no. (See!)

Fast forward to 2023 and the day I spent with Brian in London. One of my daughters gave me a tattoo pen for Christmas (my wish list consisted of: tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, tattoo, money for a tattoo) and I had this pen with me and asked Brian to “tattoo” me, and requested this:

Unfortunately it didn’t last long and washed off pretty quickly, but was my inspiration (or Plan B) for my real London tattoo. I wasn’t going to ask Brian again to design it, knowing he would just say no anyway, but he was sweet enough to agree to send me the “I left my ❤️ in London” as an image I could print and include in my tattoo…or get on its own.
A day or two later (I was still in London) Brian and I were texting and he completely surprised me by offering to design my tattoo!!! WHAT??!! Really?!? YES! Please! (No idea what got into him. Lost his mind? Temporarily insane? Who knows? And I didn’t care, because this made me over the moon happy).

We talked about the design; I definitely wanted the “I left my ❤️ in London”, coordinates, and a skyline. I sent him a tattoo design I found on Pinterest for inspiration and as a guide to how detailed to make it, and we figured out the coordinates. I also made him a list of all the sights I saw and marked a few that I wanted included; any others would be a bonus. I left the design up to him (placement of the buildings, etc.) because he IS the artist after all. And then I let him get to work. Days passed. Weeks. I was dying to ask him about it, but I summoned all my willpower and kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to bug him. Plus, I had (stupidly) told him to take his time (cos I’m nice like that).
Then one day in August I believe, he asked if I wanted to see what he had so far (as if he really had to ask!!) and… I’m not lying when I say my jaw dropped. WOW! I did NOT expect this level of detail! Holy cow! The list of attractions I sent him? Not only did he include the ones I had marked, but he included them all!

Signed by the artist and printed (slightly different) version of the tattoo design

After some fine tuning I took the design to my tattoo artist to ask if this could even be done (I had some serious doubts and “Plan B” was already becoming “Plan A” in my mind). He asked one of the other tattoo artists for input and came to the conclusion that yes, it could be done… with a #1 tattoo needle, which he would have to order because he rarely keeps them in stock. We discussed cost and number of sessions, and set the appointment for just before Thanksgiving, but he called about a week before and asked to reschedule because he had not yet recovered enough after shoulder surgery. The new appointment was December 12, and that day I kept asking him if he was sure he could do it, because I was perfectly happy with Plan B. He told me that he was scared to death of it, but wanted to challenge himself at the same time. Considering I have known him for 9 years, I trusted him and knew that he would not agree to the tattoo if he doubted his abilities. Session 1 took about 4 hours. Pain wasn’t bad at all, except for the British Museum right on my wrist. I was glad he saved that part for last because he thought about leaving it off, then decided to include it after all.

End of session 1

February 20, 2023 was finally the day of session 2, which took about 2 hours and I thought it was finished… until I found a few things he missed, so back I went on March 15 to get it finished. The pictures and video really don’t do it justice because it looks so much better in person.

Finished

And here is a little video because you can see the detail much better. The darker spots are where the tattoo was touched up and hasn’t healed yet.

I’m really happy with how it turned out and I want to give a big fat THANK YOU to both Brian, and Daryl at Scarecrow Galleries Tattoo Company. This amazing tattoo will always and forever be my favorite.

Wordless Wednesday

Turtle Tuesday

When their tank needs cleaning (once a month) the turtles move into a plastic tub… although I’m sure they would love to roam the house and see what kind of trouble they can get into, and try to find the best hiding spots.

They’re not exactly happy about being stuck in a relatively small tub, and especially Jelly tries to climb out all the time. If you look closely, she’s standing on top of Peanut Butter in the first picture to help boost herself up a little higher. She’s gotten so big since these pictures were taken that we’ve had to switch to a larger (taller) plastic tub to keep her from escaping.

Throwback Thursday

Can you believe it’s been 4 years already since the sh*t hit the fan and all the stores were out of toilet paper? And then we all had to stay home? Thanks to this “toilet paper shortage house arrest” my concept of time is still all warped, especially the last four years. Anyone else feel this way?

Evanescence “The Bitter Truth” album cover turned face mask

Must.Have.Coffee

You know it’s going to be one of those days when it’s not even 7am and you’re already on your second cup of coffee.

Turtle Tuesday

Meet the newest members of our family. Peanut Butter & Jelly, two red ear slider turtles.

In February 2022 Sara agreed to take the two turtles who belonged to the daughter of one of her managers. I made sure she did some research to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into, because taking care of them would be completely up to her. She decided that she still wanted them, so home they came.

Jelly (female) was always a little bigger than Peanut Butter and just the sweetest thing, although sometimes she can be a little bully towards Peanut Butter, but we never saw her hurt him.

Peanut Butter (male) was tiny and we noticed right away that something seemed wrong. He was very lethargic, would barely eat, just float in the water and not dive down and swim around like Jelly, and spend most of his time on the dock under the heat lamp. The previous owner claimed that he was just shy, but that just didn’t sound right to us. When there was no improvement, Greg and Sara took him to an emergency vet (it was a weekend I think) almost an hour away… during a winter storm! (There’s not many emergency vets who see exotics like turtles). Well it turned out that he had a respiratory infection and was very, very sick. They even kept him overnight because they did not think he would survive the drive home. He did make it through the night and got to come home the next day, but had to be seen by a local vet who prescribed antibiotics and Sara had to give him an injection in his arm (with my help, holding his arm) every couple of days. Thankfully he started to improve and since then they have been thriving, although Peanut Butter is still small compared to Jelly, who is about three times his size.

Jelly

Jelly

Jelly

Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter

Obsession

Yup. I think that’s the best word for it. I read about this little trick on how to take ling exposure photos with an iPhone. Tried it out in London for the first time and now I’m obsessed with it! It’s super easy to do, and so much fun! Find something that’s moving… like cars, people, fountains, waterfalls. Turn on the “Live” feature in your iPhone’s camera (not sure if other phones have this, too), and snap away. This will result in a mini video. Then open your camera roll, select the live photo and from the drop down menu at the top (the arrow next to where it says LIVE) choose Long Exposure. Et voilà, easy peasy long exposure iPhone photo. You’re welcome. 😄

Tower Bridge, London, UK

Dallas Arboretum

Dallas Arboretum

Dallas Arboretum

London is Calling…

…and I must go!

I may or may not have booked my next trip to London today. I’m SO excited!!! Is it June yet??

Tattoosday – Part 3

Continuing my addiction obsession body art… This next tattoo is a very special one. It is a memorial tattoo for my oldest son Cameron, who passed away in 2014 when he was only 25 years old. He had this Celtic cross tattoo, although I’m not sure where, I’ve never seen it myself, and to honor him, Cameron’s wife Nicole and my younger son Nicholas both got the tattoo (with the added text). Nicole on her ribs, and Nick on his forearm. I had always planned to get it, too, but it took a while to decide and be sure where, and in 2022 I finally had it done, too.

And last August came this little heart / flower / butterfly (which I still need to get touched up. (I used a filter when editing the picture, which makes the tattoo look a bit faded)

Stay tuned for the Tattoosday Grand Finale, My next session for my London tattoo is later today and I’m hoping he will be able to get it finished.

To My Valentine

❤️

Tattoosday – Part 2

As they say, tattoos are addicting, and next came this little ladybug, which is covering up the little heart tattoo.

Then this beautiful hip / thigh tattoo

These next two I had done on the same day because neither took very long.

Hobbies